Second to None Read Free Page B

for them to draw together, and all the while the sailors, especially the new ones, pressed men like himself, had been forced to watch the enemy’s topsails rising like banners until they had filled the horizon. One officer had later described the awesome sight as resembling the armoured knights at Agincourt.
    And all the while, aboard the frigate
Phalarope,
so puny she had seemed against that great line of battle, he had seen their young captain, Richard Bolitho, urging and encouraging, and once, before Ferguson himself had been smashed down, he had seen him kneel to hold the hand of a dying sailor. He had never forgotten his face on that terrible day, never would forget it.
    And now he was the steward of this estate, its farm and its cottages, and all the characters who made it a good place to work. Many of them were former sailors, men who had served with Bolitho in so many ships and in every part of the world where the flag had been hoisted. He had seen many of them at the church today, for Sir Richard Bolitho was one of them, and Falmouth’s most famous son. Son of a sailor, from generations of sea officers, and this house below Pendennis Castle was a part of their history.
    Across the yard he could see lights now in some of the rooms, and imagined the line of portraits, including the painting of Sir Richard as the young captain he had known. His wife Cheney had commissioned it while Bolitho had been away with the fleet. Bolitho had never seen his wife again; she had been killed with their unborn child when her carriage had shed a wheel and overturned. Ferguson himself had carried her, seeking help when it was already too late. He smiled sadly, reminiscently.
And with only one arm
.
    The Church of King Charles the Martyr, where the lives and deaths of other Bolithos were commemorated, had been filled to capacity, servants from the house, farm workers, strangers and friends pressed close together to pray and to remember.
    He allowed his mind to dwell on the family pew near the pulpit. Richard Bolitho’s younger sister Nancy, who had not yet come to terms with her own husband’s death. Roxby, ‘theKing of Cornwall’, would not be an easy man to lay aside. Next to her Catherine, Lady Somervell, tall and very erect, all in black, her face covered by a veil, and only the diamond pendant shaped like an opened fan which Bolitho had given her moving on her breast to betray her emotion.
    And, beside her, Adam Bolitho, his eyes upon the altar, his chin lifted. Defiant. Determined. And, like the moment when he had come to the house after his uncle’s death, and had read Catherine’s note and clipped on the old family sword, so like the young, vanished sea officer who had grown up here in Falmouth.
    There had been another officer with him, a lieutenant, but Ferguson had noticed only Adam Bolitho and the beautiful woman beside him.
    It had reminded him painfully of the day in that same church when a memorial service had been conducted following the news that Sir Richard and his mistress had been lost in the wreck of the
Golden Plover
off the African coast. Many of the same people had been there, as well as Bolitho’s wife. Ferguson could remember her look of utter disbelief when one of Adam’s officers had burst in with the revelation that Bolitho and his companions were alive, and had been rescued against all odds. And when Lady Catherine’s part had become known, how she had given hope and faith to the survivors in that open boat, she had been taken to their hearts. It had seemed to sweep aside the scandal, and the outrage which had been previously voiced at their liaison.
    Together or alone, Ferguson could see them clearly. Catherine, her dark hair streaming unchecked in the wind while she walked on the cliff path, or paused by the stile where he had seen them once, as if to watch some approaching ship. Perhaps hoping . . .
    Now there was no hope, and her man, her lover and the